


In The Pines

by Meduseld



Category: Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Caleb's in the Navy Ben's CIA, Canon Death Mention, M/M, Washington's still the president
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-19
Updated: 2017-06-19
Packaged: 2018-11-16 05:55:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11247681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meduseld/pseuds/Meduseld
Summary: Somehow, over time, continents and mail, Caleb and Ben build a home





	In The Pines

**Author's Note:**

> [These tags](http://allthatisbizarre.tumblr.com/post/139083559776/schuylerelizas-when-will-my-reflection-show-who) made me do it.

Caleb’s uncle dies, and leaves him an orchard and patch of land.

He doesn’t find out for six months, the letter shuffled around different postings, covered in dust from three continents until it reaches the place he’s actually stationed.

He takes two deep gulping breaths and uses the sympathy the letter brings him and the crumpled half pack of cigarettes he keeps stuffed in his boot for trade to get access to a sat phone.

He calls Langley, and doesn’t need to say anything at all.

Ben’s had a lifetime to know what to say.

 

It’s another year and half before he makes it back to Setauket, and five days before he can bring himself to go to the grave.

Afterwards, he and Ben walk in silence.

Their fingers are loosely tangled.

At dinner, in the Reverend’s small and tidy yellow kitchen, he asks if Caleb has any plans. The orchard practically runs itself, the staff almost family for how long and hard they’ve worked there.

But the thought of that little patch of land, where he used to go camping with Abe and Ben, jumping into the little stream and trying to fish, and later the bonfires in high school, where they’d sit pretending that Anna and Abe didn’t know that he and Ben would also be making out behind the trees, makes Caleb stand up and go out to the porch.

Behind him, the Tallmadge men do what they can to muddle through small talk and the dishes.

It’s comforting in its familiarity.

That night, in Ben and Sam’s shared childhood bedroom he tucks his face against Ben’s neck and finally, finally lets himself cry.

 

A couple of days later, sitting in a German airbase and waiting for his next plane, he starts doodling on a stray strip of cardboard.

He manages to snag enough internet access to send Ben the .jpg, the subject line empty and the body reading _‘?’_

Ben sends him back the same image, with all kinds of arrows and symbols and notes in the margin.

The image file travels the continents between them, growing heavier each time, loaded with estimates and quoted figures. Until the day Caleb sends an email with no images just _‘lets do it’_

Ben meets him in Madrid to celebrate.

Fourteen days later, he gets off a plane in New York.

 

He comes home by degrees, relearning civilian life and town rhythms, as he measures beams and pours concrete.

Ben comes up on weekends, or whatever time he can actually spare, and he never complains about the work.

A few times Caleb has to order him to nap instead, dead on his feet from his nebulous work, which Caleb has been careful to never learn details about.

The same way he hasn’t asked how a desk job translates into bullet scars, into bizarre notes, into trips too close to bases not marked on maps.

He knows that the house means the same thing to Ben, a deadline, a set time to return to the real world.

Washington’s retiring soon, he knows.

 

It might even make him stretch out the time frame, take off a few days from building to drink all of Anna’s beer and babysit Abe’s boy, and careful to not do it in that order.

He waits for Ben to pick wallpaper and carpets and decorations.

He pretends he wants a singing bass on the wall and a truly hideous quilt, to watch Ben’s lips tighten, a gesture he’s had all his life but only that he only grew into later.

They celebrate an awkward Christmas with the Woodhulls, but wake early the next morning to trek to the little almost cabin.

It’s too cold to properly christen it, so they compromise by making out like teenagers against a wall.

 

Six weeks after that, Washington really does retire, and Caleb drinks champagne at a DC ballroom feeling stiff and conspicuous in a suit.

Ben tells him he looks handsome, and they slip out the side door with Ben’s work-friends would be stretching it- _acquaintances_ that aren’t horrible.

They end up at some dive bar, playing aggressive rounds of pool and dancing on tables.

Later, in an alleyway, ducked out of sight from police headlights Caleb remembers that broken pitchers are how Ben expresses grief.

He stays an entire weekend in Ben’s depressingly grey and alarmingly orderly apartment, mostly alone.

He doesn’t notice most of Ben’s things are in two go-bags in the hall closet until he tries looking for extra batteries for the remote, almost at the end of his visit.

 

At the end of spring, Caleb looks around and realizes that it’s finished.

He texts Ben.

He knows Ben normally takes the speed limit as a polite suggestion, but he thinks this time breaks a record.

Or the laws of physics.

They don’t even make it through the threshold, Ben wrapping his legs around Caleb’s waist and knocking him down right there on the porch.

It’s good that they don’t have neighbors.

There’s no sleep that first night, leaving their mark on every place they can think of before finally, finally the bed.

 

Caleb wakes up first, Ben wrapped around him like he’s never letting go and the sunlight coming through the window. _Their_ window.

It doesn’t take long for Ben’s eyes to open, tilting up to meet his, framed by a messy halo of hair.

“Hey” Caleb whispers “Welcome home”.


End file.
